What if DreamWorks was founded in 1934? Wiki
Advertisement
What if DreamWorks was founded in 1934? Wiki
An Alternate Universe Wiki
1,740
pages
in: Non-DreamWorks, Crossovers, Intercompany crossovers,
and 4 more

Stephen Hillenburg Cinematic Universe

Sign in to edit
Stephen Hillenburg Cinematic Universe

'
Film and Television
Games
Miscellaneous

Stephen Hillenburg Cinematic Universe (SHCU) is an American media franchise and cross-company shared universe centered on a series of 23 standalone feature films (22 computer-animated and one live-action), all based on the animated television series created by American animator and marine biology teacher Stephen Hillenburg and his animation studio United Plankton Pictures. The films are all produced by United Plankton Pictures and MRC and co-produced by other studios such as Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount Animation (both for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and The Animal City Movie), DreamWorks Animation (for the franchise's other animated films), Gaumont Animation (for Atomic Puppet Returns), DreamWorks Pictures and Imagine Entertainment (both for Awesome Six Origins). The franchise is announced to have two phases.

The first film in the SHCU is The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which began the films of Phase One, culminating in The Doggies' Road Trip. All the films in the Phase One were dedicated to Hillenburg, who died in 2018, and also served as an executive producer on the project.

The Phase One films were originally slated for worldwide theatrical releases in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively, but plans were changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All films in the Phase One were released theatrically in Canada on August 14, August 21, August 28, September 2, September 18, September 27, October 7, October 19, October 26, November 6, November 21, and December 4, 2020 respectively, and internationally digitally on Netflix on November 5, 2020, being later released via premium video-on-demand in the United States on Amazon Prime Video in February 10, 2021 along with the Phase Two's films, with The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run being also released on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021.

In 2019, a year after Hillenburg's death, United Plankton Pictures announced the possibilities of expanding the universe to television with Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years, a SpongeBob SquarePants spin-off TV series loosely based on the flashback scenes from The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, which debuted on Paramount+ in March 4, 2021, and two spin-off TV shows for The Doggies and Tex and Avery; Doggies Around the World and Tex and Avery: Life in the Big City, both being sequels to their respective films in the SHCU and which debuted on Netflix on August 12, 2021.

Development[]

Creation[]

TBD

Animation[]

Rather than going with the traditional 2D animation from the original television shows, the SHCU relied on various computer-animation companies for its films' CGI animation such as Bardel Entertainment; Reel FX Creative Studios; Mikros Image; Sony Pictures Imageworks; Blur Studio; Marza Animation Planet; and Rainmaker Studios.

Music[]

The films have their scores composed by well-known composers such as Brian Tyler, Hans Zimmer, Mychael and Jeff Danna, Jack Antonoff, Michael Giacchino, Mark Mothersbaugh, Richard M. Sherman, John Debney, and Tyler Bates.

Feature films[]

Phase One[]

  • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020)
  • Sailor Cat and Sailor Fish (2020)
  • Awesome Six Origins (2020)
  • Aura and Sally (2020)
  • T.U.F.F. (2020)
  • Escape from Camp Lakebottom (2020)
  • Pirate Express (2020)
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes: Hell Sweet Hell (2020)
  • Atomic Puppet Returns (2020)
  • The Doggies' Road Trip (2020)

Phase Two[]

  • Male and Female (2021)
  • Lego (2021)
  • Spy Madness (03/TBD/2021)
  • Tex and Avery's Big Adventure (2021)
  • Buddies (04/30/2021)
  • Family of the Dead (2021)
  • Neighbors from Hell: Trapped on Earth (2021)
  • The Brightstars (2021)
  • The Animal City Movie (2021)
  • Rocky's Big Movie (2021)

Television series[]

Trivia[]

  • In order to show that all of the films take place in the same universe, the only character who appears in every film of the franchise is Otto (voiced by comedienne Awkwafina), a robot who usually makes speaking cameos in several scenes with his main lines being "I love money!" and "You're fired". However, his only major role in the SHCU was in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.
  • Five of the SHCU's films are notable for being heavily influenced by either their source materials' media or other films through their plots:
    • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run - heavily influenced by the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Have You Seen This Snail?" and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
    • Sailor Cat and Sailor Fish - heavily influenced by buddy comedy films and swashbuckler films.
    • Awesome Six Origins - heavily influenced by the Awesome Six episode "Awesome of Action!", Walt Disney Pictures/Pixar Animation Studios' The Incredibles, and 20th Century Studios' Fantastic Four films.
    • Escape from Camp Lakebottom - heavily influenced by the Camp Lakebottom episode of the same name, episodes "Rise of the Bottom Dwellers", "Fright Club", "Meet the Gretch's Parents", "The Lakebottom House of Horrors! Mwa Ha, Ha!", and series finale "The Camp Lakebottom Classic".
    • The Doggies' Road Trip - heavily influenced by the The Doggies episode "A Doggie Family Vacation", road comedy films such as Walt Disney Pictures' A Goofy Movie and Universal Pictures' Mr. Bean's Holiday, as well as Warner Bros. Pictures/Warner Animation Group's Scoob!.
  • The films of the SHCU are not allowed to have sequels, although its only two exceptions were:
    • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run since the previous two SpongeBob SquarePants films (The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water) are both traditionally animated (although the latter got the characters being computer-animated in the live-action scenes) and have never been part of the SHCU to begin with
    • Neighbors from Hell: Trapped on Earth since it has no connection with Jimmy Two-Shoes: Hell Sweet Hell (besides Lucius and Samy's appearance and roles in the film).
  • While most of the universe's films are fully computer-animated, there were only two exceptions:
    • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run does have a live-action dream sequence featuring Danny Trejo and Snoop Dogg as well as a major supporting character named Sage (portrayed by Keanu Reeves), a tumbleweed with a live-action human face.
    • Awesome Six Origins is a live-action film instead of an animated film.
  • Several of the SHCU's films basically put characters from Hillenburg's different shows (most of them being one-time characters) in different roles:
    • King Poseidon, an one-time villain from the Sailor Cat and Sailor Fish episode "Fish and the Lost City of Atlantic City", appears in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run as the main antagonist.
    • Killion, one of the main recurring villains from Awesome Six, appears in The Doggies' Road Trip as the main antagonist (Doug Lawrence reprises his role from Awesome Six). He is reimagined as more smarter and competent than his Awesome Six counterpart, having robotic minions called TBD and trying to kidnap twins Kevin and Wendy Doggie in order to TBD.
    • TBD
    • TBD
    • Dr. Alien and Monitor Monitor, two of the main recurring villains from Awesome Six, appear in Atomic Puppet Returns. They serve as the film's main antagonists (Dee Bradley Baker and Jess Harnell reprise their roles from Awesome Six). They plan to step up a game by TBD.
    • TBD
    • Madame Kadinger, an one-time villain from the The Doggies episode "Wendy the Singer", appears in Aura and Sally as the main antagonist. She appears as a new crime boss for the titular criminal mice, but secretly frames them of TBD after getting tired of their incompetence, making the duo to reform themselves and foil Kandinger's plans. Although, they were arrested for their numerous crimes along with Kadinger, but unlike Kadinger, Aura and Sally are released in light of their good behavior.
    • TBD
    • TBD
    • TBD
    • Dreamtoons characters Biscuit Dog and his co-star Mr. Stickman make a brief non-speaking cameo in The Doggies' Road Trip during the scene where the Doggie family's van is chased by Killion and his henchbots. This is a reference to the fact that these characters were also created by Stephen Hillenburg.
      • Due to being a Dreamtoons film, other characters File and Mobile and the Droidlings make a brief cameo in The Brightstars during the scene where the Brightstar family face Dr. Lucius in the big city.
  • Although the SHCU's films don't have continuity between each other, they contain some easter egg crossovers between each other (a la Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation Studios, DreamWorks Animation and Illumination Entertainment):
    • TBD
    • TBD
    • TBD
    • In The Doggies' Road Trip, SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star's mugshot (from The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run) appears on a TV set in a TV shop's window, during the scene where George and Linda try to call a mechanic to repair their family van.
    • TBD
    • TBD
  • TBD
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.
Advertisement